


The Many Ways the Dragon Witch Can Kill Virgil

by esperink



Series: The Prince, the Duke, and their Knight [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Background Prinxiety - Freeform, Character Death, Dissection, Drowning, Gen, Not Really Character Death, Other torture not specified in tags, Temporary Character Death, The Dragon Witch is Evil, Torture, background dukexiety - Freeform, everyone is there in the last chapter but it's not enough to tag them, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:26:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28725825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esperink/pseuds/esperink
Summary: The Dragon Witch finds Virgil on a peaceful stroll in the Imagination.Unfortunately, the Dragon Witch is not peaceful.
Series: The Prince, the Duke, and their Knight [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2128869
Comments: 51
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm posting the first two chapters of this already because, apparently, it's torture virgil day
> 
> stuffs: drowning, dying

Virgil was on a stroll in the Imagination. He had wanted to calm his nerves, and the twins had said he was welcome to either side of the Imagination any time he wanted. He took this time to take a few deep breaths and focus on the nature around him.

He took a breath, closed his eyes.

And tripped over something.

He fell into a ditch of brambles. He got scratches as he pulled himself out of it, grimacing. As he did that, he tripped again and fell into the nearby lake.

Okay, so maybe this walk wasn’t going as he’d planned.

He crawled out of the lake, but a voice made him freeze.

“Now, hm, what do we have here?”

He looked up. He vaguely recognized the woman who stood before him.

The Dragon Witch.

He scrambled back, which only landed him back in the water. She laughed. She grew to her full size and grabbed Virgil into her large grasp.

Virgil was about to have a panic attack. He was completely at her mercy.

“Something of the Prince’s  _ and  _ the Duke’s?” She grinned wickedly. Virgil squirmed. “We are going to have so much fun,” she said, kneeling in front of the lake. She shoved him underwater, keeping him there for a minute. Wanting to hurt him but not drown him, not yet.

Virgil struggled in her grip, trying to hold his breath as long as he could. He flailed and panicked. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t get away. The large, clawed hand held him at the bottom of the lake, cutting off any possibility of getting to the surface and being able to breathe.

His lungs burned. His throat burned when he accidentally inhaled.

She felt him stop flailing after another minute. She frowned, pulling the body from the water. “Oops,” she said. Virgil had stopped moving, stopped breathing. She stood, then she got another idea. Might as well show the twins that their beloved ‘Anxiety’ had died. She couldn’t wait to see the devastated looks on their faces.

She held him as she went back to her castle. 

It had been only an hour since she’d drowned him, and she was getting ready to send a message to the twins, when she’d heard coughing.

She whirled around and looked at Virgil. He was coughing. He was alive.

... _ Could _ he die?

Oh, having him around seemed a  _ lot  _ more fun now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffs: torture, dissection, dying/murder, this is actually really messed up

When Virgil blinked awake, he was strapped to a table. He struggled a bit, before noticing the Dragon Witch standing nearby, at a reasonable size, with a dangerous smile on her face. He held back a whimper. He didn’t like that smile.

“Anxiety,” she said in a sickly sweet voice, “why didn’t you tell me you come back to life?”

Oh no.

The Dragon Witch took a step forward, but Virgil couldn’t scramble back this time. He was stuck. He was terrified. “We are going to have  _ so  _ much fun, Anxiety,” the Dragon Witch said. 

“Please,” he whispered.

“Since you’re a guest, why don’t you decide what we do first?” The Dragon Witch stepped aside, gesturing to a table.

A table of torture, it looked like. There were knives, rope, assorted potions, a  _ scalpel _ …

“If you don’t choose something, I will,” the Dragon Witch warned him, and Virgil didn’t know how that was much of a warning, since he was going to be miserable anyway. “We can go with the most painful ones, first.”

Virgil swallowed. Maybe the scalpel wasn’t actually the worst thing. Maybe she was going to just cut him a bit. Maybe her aim wasn’t to actually kill him, just harm him. He hoped.

“The… the…,” he started weakly.

“Speak up,” the Dragon Witch told him.

“Scalpel?” Virgil asked.

The Dragon Witch lit up. “Didn’t take you for one to choose that,” she said. She grabbed the scalpel.

Virgil paled, realizing that maybe they did not have the same thought process.

She brought the scalpel to Virgil’s skin, cutting deep. Virgil whimpered in pain. She removed the scalpel, using it now to cut up his shirt and jacket to give her better access. When those were out of the way, she placed the scalpel on the middle of Virgil’s chest, slicing and dragging it down the middle of his body, cutting it open.

Virgil was screaming.

The Dragon Witch smirked, reveling in the sound. She pulled back skin, letting his insides air out. His heart was pulsing like crazy. She wanted to grab it and take a bite, but that would end things too quickly for him, in her opinion. He needed to feel the pain.

Virgil cried, pain too much for him to form a coherent thought. His insides should not be feeling air. His skin was supposed to be in one piece.

“I wonder what makes you tick,” the Dragon Witch murmured curiously, running her fingers along his organs. Virgil convulsed. “What makes you come back from something like drowning?”

Virgil silently begged her to stop already, unable to speak through the pain and wrongness.

“How long can you live without your stomach? How long can you live without your  _ heart _ ?” She grinned wickedly. “Let’s find out, shall we?” She ripped something out.

Virgil cried out in pain.

“That wasn’t your heart, don’t worry,” the Dragon Witch cooed. “But it can be soon. Still, though, it would be no fun, huh? It would be over too quickly.” 

She spoke as if she was comforting a child, but she was actually the opposite of comforting. She held the scalpel to something else, slicing. Virgil closed his eyes, not wanting to look down. It suddenly became a lot harder to breathe.

“How long can you live on one lung?” the Dragon Witch asked rhetorically.

“Please,” Virgil managed through gasps. “Just kill me already.”

“If you insist,” the Dragon Witch said, cutting out his heart. 

Virgil stilled, and the Dragon Witch watched the heart pulse wildly for a minute before it stilled as well. She put the heart down.

“Clean him up and put him back together,” she told her assistant. “I want him in one piece when I decide what to do next.” She walked out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffs: being buried alive, suffocating, being cut open, i'm not gonna warn for death anymore since that's like, the main theme

Virgil’s skin felt too tight. He looked down at himself and found that he was messily sewn back together. He felt nauseous at the sight. He looked away, around at his surroundings. He was still strapped to the table.

“Hello, Anxiety,” the Dragon Witch said, walking inside the room. “Guess what we’re doing this time?” She leaned forward. “Here’s a hint: you’ll definitely have trouble breathing.” She grinned.

Oh boy. He wasn’t looking forward to any more time with her.

He wondered how long he had been gone. He wondered if Roman or Remus noticed he was gone.

Probably not, he thought miserably. He liked his time alone, and the twins tended to respect that.

The Dragon Witch pat his cheek to get his attention back on track. “How much of a connection do you have with the earth?” she asked. Her grin grew. “I’m sure you’ll have much more of a connection when I’m done with you.”

He really didn’t want to know what she meant, but he didn’t have much of a choice.

“Tie him up,” the Dragon Witch told her assistant. Her assistant complied, tying Virgil up tightly enough to cut into his skin. The Dragon Witch didn’t seem to care.

She grew in size and grabbed Virgil, going outside and digging a big hole in the ground. She placed him in it. He struggled in the rope.

“Have fun,” she said, pushing the dirt back into place. The dirt started to cover Virgil, who struggled.

“Why are you doing this?” Virgil asked.

The Dragon Witch smiled again. “Because it’s fun,” she said simply.

Virgil squirmed under the dirt. It was starting to cover his face and he couldn’t do anything about it. He tried to shake the dirt off by moving his head, but the Dragon Witch continued to cover him with dirt.

He felt his panic rise. But he had to control his breathing. If he breathed too fast, the dirt would get into his mouth faster.

But soon he wouldn’t have a choice. More and more dirt landed on him. It covered his mouth and his eyes. This was like drowning but worse. He struggled, trying to get out of the rope, but it was tied too tight. It hurt his stitches.

He accidentally took a deep breath, but that caused dirt to get into his mouth and throat and lungs. It set off a coughing fit, with more gasping and more breathing, before he couldn’t breathe at all. His mouth and throat were full of dirt. He blacked out.

He realized, when he came to, that he was still underground. There was still dirt in his mouth and lungs and throat, and he was going to die again incredibly soon.

How long had he been under the dirt? It could take as little as an hour for him to be revived by the Mindscape, so it had been at least an hour. Why didn’t the Dragon Witch dig him up yet and find a different way to torture him?

He woke up four more times. At least four hours underground. 

Had the Dragon Witch just forgotten about him? Was he going to die here, over and over and over?

Three more times. Eight hours, including the first time. It took hardly any time for the dirt to kill him since it was already embedded in his body.

Time blurred. He lost count of how many times he’d woken up to suffocating.

Why even bother counting now?

Suddenly light filtered through the dirt. Not sunlight, Virgil noted, as he continued to choke. No, it had been long enough for night to fall. He blacked out by the time the Dragon Witch pulled him out of the hole she’d buried him in.

Next time he woke, he coughed a lot, trying to get the dirt out of his lungs. Only some of it came out. He was suffocating and he wasn’t even underground. 

He could barely hear the Dragon Witch as she spoke. “We’re going to have to do a little surgery on you, Anxiety,” she said, “if we want to keep having our fun. No fun if you just keep dying from dirt.”

The next thing he was aware of was the Dragon Witch strapping him to a table again. She grabbed the scalpel, reducing her size to that of a normal woman, and cut him open.

He couldn’t even scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffs: being crushed, the twins, threats

Virgil was curled up on a cold hard floor. He realized this, very suddenly. He wasn’t strapped to a table or tied up.

But he was very tired and weak, so he didn’t have the energy to do anything to escape the clutches of the Dragon Witch.

He just closed his eyes when her giant hand picked him up.

He heard her chuckle. “Learning your place, are you, Anxiety?”

He curled up a little more.

The Dragon Witch smirked. She used magic to do a visual call. Virgil heard chairs screeching and people standing up.

“Hello boys,” the Dragon Witch said. “I believe I have something of yours.” She held up her hand, where Virgil looked so small.

“Virgil!” Roman’s voice.

“Let him go!” Remus’ voice.

“I don’t think I will,” the Dragon Witch said almost conversationally. “I’ve been having a lot of fun.” With that, she clenched her hand, crushing the anxious Side. There was a sharp cry of pain from Virgil, getting a reaction from the twins.

“You see,” the Dragon Witch said, dropping Virgil’s body to the floor and looking down at it disdainfully, like it was a bug, “I’ve found out something very interesting about your precious Anxiety. He doesn’t stay dead. Which makes him perfect for little experiments and fun. And we’ve had so much fun so far. It’s been a couple of days; I’m surprised you haven’t noticed him missing. Do you care for your Anxiety that little?”

Remus growled.

The Dragon Witch smiled. “Goodbye, boys.” She ended the call.

The twins stared at the surface that had held the call.

“I’m going to fucking kill her!” Remus growled, materializing his mace.

Roman was just as furious as Remus, but he was also very shocked. Shocked that the Dragon Witch could be so  _ evil _ , that something  _ he  _ had created could kill someone he cared about with no remorse.

“Are you coming or not?” Remus demanded, and Roman realized that Remus had materialized a door to the Imagination, which he usually couldn’t do. When Sides had more emotion, though, they were able to do more. So Remus must really care about Virgil to be upset enough to create a door directly to the Imagination.

Roman nodded, unsheathing his sword as he followed his brother into the Imagination. 

The Dragon Witch was going to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffs: burning someone with acid, drinking said acid  
> i love how these warnings are usually basically a summary of what's gonna happen.

It had been a few hours since Virgil came back and the Dragon Witch hadn’t done anything. Virgil was very suspicious and felt like he was going to lose it if she didn’t say or do something at some point. The silence made him antsy. 

“Thirsty?” the Dragon Witch asked, offering Virgil a tall glass of something clear. “Want some water?”

Virgil eyed the glass. He was thirsty, but he didn’t trust her. 

The Dragon Witch shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, placing the glass nearby, where Virgil could easily grab it if he wanted to. 

Virgil hesitated. He really was thirsty. It felt like it had been ages since he ate or drank anything.

He reached towards the glass with a shaking hand and grabbed it. He sniffed it, for anything suspicious. It didn’t smell suspicious.

He brought it up to his mouth and chugged it. He didn’t notice the sour taste until he’d swallowed the last of the liquid. 

Suddenly his esophagus burned. His stomach and throat and mouth and eyes burned so bad that he clawed those areas as if doing so would relieve him of the pain.

The Dragon Witch forced another cup of the liquid down Virgil’s throat, but it didn’t all go down, causing some to spill out of his mouth and onto his face and neck. It burned his cheeks and one of his eyes. The vision in that eye blacked out.

He could feel the acid (he assumed it was acid) bubble and sizzle inside him. He couldn’t scream; his throat was too swollen and raw for that.

He managed to push her away but the cup she had been holding with the leftover acid dropped from her hands and splashed all over Virgil’s knees and shins. Virgil couldn’t even whimper at the pain with how badly the acid had already damaged his throat.

The Dragon Witch leaned forward and smiled. She was enjoying watching him squirm and spasm.

“Didn’t we learn this in grade school?” she asked. “Don’t take food and drink from strangers.” She cackled.

It was at that moment Virgil really hated her. If either of the twins managed to kill her he’d feel no remorse, he was sure.

Speaking of the twins, he wondered if they were coming to get him. He would hope that they cared enough.

_ Why would they? _

_ Why wouldn’t they? _

The numbness that settled over him allowed him a moment of coherent thought.

Which, unfortunately, didn’t last long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffs: stabbing, blood

Virgil was so tired. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since the Dragon Witch had caught him, or how many times he’d died, but he was so tired. 

She’d already killed him so many ways, what else could there possibly be?

The Dragon Witch stabbed him out of nowhere, causing a startled cry out of him.

If he’d been paying attention it wouldn’t really be out of nowhere. He would have noticed that the Dragon Witch was polishing a blade nearby, but he’d instead been distracted by how exhausted he was. 

She twisted the blade in his stomach. He coughed up blood.

“Please,” Virgil said. “I’ll do anything as long as you stop killing me.”

The Dragon Witch raised an eyebrow. “Anything?”

Virgil hesitated.

The Dragon Witch leaned forward. “Would you trade the Prince’s or Duke’s life for yours?”

Virgil’s response was instant. “Not in this century.”

The Dragon Witch twisted the knife again, drawing out a whimper. “Shame,” she said, “I really would like to see what the Duke’s breaking point is.”

Virgil’s hands curled.

“You see,” the Dragon Witch continued conversationally, as if they were discussing the pros and cons of something mundane, “the Prince would be easy to break. But the Duke has tolerance because of what he is.” She pulled the knife out, at an angle.

Virgil bit his tongue in an attempt to keep quiet, not wanting her to have the satisfaction of his pain. She stabbed his shoulder with enough force to go through bone. He wasn’t able to stay quiet this time.

The knife got stuck. The Dragon Witch didn’t seem to let this bother her, just trying to get it out, but the repeated tugs caused Virgil unimaginable pain.

By the time the Dragon Witch had gotten the knife out, Virgil’s shoulder was a bloody mess. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to breathe through the pain.

She stabbed his side. The table underneath him was already slick and red with his blood. The stab in his side just poured out more.

Virgil was dizzy with pain and blood loss. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could actually take this. His breathing was labored, but he tried to regulate it.

The next place she chose to stab was his neck, which somehow hurt even more. 

He opened his mouth to beg her to stop but he found that no noise came from it. She had rendered him unable to speak.

The Dragon Witch smirked. “No more complaints,” she said. She put more pressure on the knife for more pain, before taking it out to decide where to stab him next.

The heart, apparently. It somehow hurt much more than any other place she had chosen. She twisted the knife, watching as Virgil writhed.

She stabbed him in the heart once, twice more. She could feel the vibrations of the beats through the knife.

It didn’t take the vibrations long to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffs: choking and hanging and the like

Virgil woke up to someone tying a rope around his neck. He jerked away but the assistant tugged him back with a slightly bored look.

After the rope was tied, the assistant tugged the rope to check its efficiency. Virgil grimaced. The assistant smirked, but stood and walked over to the Dragon Witch.

“Are we ready?” she asked the assistant, who nodded. The Dragon Witch smiled. “Good.” She walked to Virgil.

Virgil scrambled back.

“None of that now,” she said, yanking the rope so he nearly fell against her. She stood him up with her. “There’s so much I can do with rope,” she mused. “How about a little sightseeing, Anxiety?” Wings grew out of her back and she increased, slightly, in size, so she could hold the rope better.

Virgil shook his head, hoping to convey a “No thank you!”

“Too bad,” she said. She dragged him outside.

Virgil tried to get out of the rope. It gave him a little wiggle room, but it wasn’t enough to get his head out of the loop.

Then they were up in the air. Virgil grabbed at the rope around his neck, trying to lessen the pressure on his throat. His hands slipped, and he was choking.

Being unable to breathe due to the rope was different from being unable to breathe underwater. The rope felt like it was crushing something. He couldn’t hold himself up enough to relieve the pressure and he choked. He tried clawing at the rope but instead scratched his neck.

He looked down, or he tried to. They were high up, so even if he managed to get out of the rope, he’d still die. At this point, there  _ was  _ no point.

Somehow, it took him longer to die up here with the rope than the water.

“Enjoying the view?” the Dragon Witch called down in a mocking voice.

He really did hate her. 

The next time he was conscious he was on the ground, but the rope was still around his neck. Any hope he had that the Dragon Witch was done for the day quickly dissipated.

She checked the rope and then tied it to the saddle of a horse. “My assistant will be handling this time.” The assistant perked up. “I have some things that need doing. I trust everything will go fine. I mean, other than for you, Anxiety, but that’s the point.” The Dragon Witch smirked slightly.

The assistant led the horse out. Virgil could only follow, lest he choked from the rope. He was just delaying the inevitable at this point.

“Seriously, what do you get from this?” Virgil demanded the assistant. “How could you help her?”

Virgil felt the smack rather than heard it. He held his face, glaring at the assistant, while the assistant glared back.

The assistant walked back to the side of the horse and patted it to keep going. There was no noise in the footsteps or the pat. Weird, Virgil thought vaguely.

Being tied to the horse wasn’t any better.

He hated the assistant just as much, he decided. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this feels rushed, ugh  
> stuffs: fire, i guess? fighting, re changing into something.
> 
> note: the fire thing the dw referenced, i didn't actually have time to write it. rip. so yeah i guess it is a little rushed, sorry!

The Dragon Witch was trying to decide what to do next when her assistant tugged on her shirt. She glanced at them. The assistant pointed at the Dragon Witch’s cauldron, which monitored the Prince’s and Duke’s progress into the Imagination.

“Ah, we may see them sooner than we thought, then,” she said. She stood. “Come. Let’s have fun one last time.” She was expecting the twins to just come and try to take Virgil, and if they did, she could just find a way to get him back.

Virgil was chained to a wall.

“Hello, Anxiety,” she said. “Did you know your precious Prince and Duke aren’t even looking for you?” she lied.

Virgil shifted, grimacing at the cuffs rubbing against his already hurt wrists, and grimacing at the thought that nobody was coming. It was depressing, to say the least, to know the two he cared about most didn’t seem to care about him.

The Dragon Witch grabbed Virgil’s chin and forced him to look at her. She put her mouth on his, causing him to recoil and try to push her away. Instead of moving, though, she forced Virgil’s mouth open and blew fire inside.

He choked, coughing up smoke when she pulled away. 

“I’m thinking…,” the Dragon Witch began, “about seeing just how badly your skin can burn in certain areas. It was fun putting you in the fire earlier but this could be more fun,” she said cheerily. She looked at her assistant. “What do you think?” The assistant nodded. “I thought so. First, let’s do this again.”

Assuming what “this” was (correctly), he clamped a hand over his mouth. The sudden pressure he accidentally applied hurt, though, causing him to gasp and move his hand away.

The Dragon Witch took this opportunity to lean forward and breathe more fire into his mouth. Virgil’s throat burned and his eyes watered. He coughed smoke and held his neck, as if that was going to help at all. It hurt so badly.

A sudden crash happened nearby somewhere. The Dragon Witch looked over.

The twins had broken in.

The Dragon Witch sighed and stood as Roman and Remus charged at her. Roman stabbed her with his sword but she didn’t look impressed.

“Really,” she said, as she grew in size. Scales dotted her skin and wings grew out of her back. “You  _ really _ think you can take me on? You may have created me, Prince, but sometimes creations take a mind of their own.” She hit Roman with a clawed hand.

It didn’t manage to reach him. Remus had jumped in front of Roman and blocked with his mace.

Remus looked at Roman. “Handle Virgil, I’ll handle the Dragon Bitch,” he said.

Roman nodded and ran to where he saw Virgil sit. Virgil flinched away from him and it broke Roman’s heart. 

Before he could mess with the cuffs someone pulled him away and hit him. The Dragon Witch’s assistant had always seemed so timid; Roman didn’t expect it to have such a strong punch.

Roman wasted no time at all incapacitating the assistant.

Virgil had started to cough smoke. Roman frowned. “Oh, sweet knight, what has she done to you?” he murmured.

Roman turned to see how his twin was doing.

Remus had also taken the form of a dragon, but not quite. The creature that was Remus also included tentacles, a spiked tail, and horns. 

Roman looked away as his twin attacked the Dragon Witch. He focused on getting Virgil out of his chains. He managed to take the cuffs off.

Virgil fell on him but immediately scampered away. Roman’s heart broke again. “Virgil, it’s me,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffs: re just straight up tears the dw apart but it's not descriptive. think that's it.

Virgil almost didn’t believe him. The Dragon Witch had said that the twins weren’t going to be coming.

But maybe she had been lying. That made sense, too. To just torture him more. Because that was the point of him still being here, right? Why she hadn’t let him go.

Virgil looked at Roman, carefully, for anything that would give an illusion away.

They heard the Dragon Witch roar and looked over to see what had happened. Remus had given her a big gash on her side, but he was still attacking her. He was scratching off scales and pieces of skin. It was animalistic.

Roman and Virgil looked away when Remus pulled off one of the Dragon Witch’s wings. Yeah, the Dragon Witch probably wouldn’t go that far for an illusion.

The Dragon Witch shrank a little and fell back, scrambling away from Remus, her sharp nails scrabbling the floor for purchase. “Duke,” she tried, “you don’t actually care about Anxiety, do you?” She sounded desperate.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say.

Roman and Virgil covered their ears when the Dragon Witch screamed as Remus tore her apart. And then the screaming stopped, and there was silence. 

Virgil looked up as Remus shifted back to normal, making his way over. Virgil tensed.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Remus said gently.

Roman had never seen his twin act so gently towards anyone. For a moment, he considered the possibility that this wasn’t actually Remus, but he’d come with him. He had to consider the fact that his brother did care about Virgil as much as he did.

The twins helped Virgil stand on shaky legs.

Virgil coughed smoke again. He vaguely wondered how much smoke there was to cough out. The Dragon Witch had put a lot of fire down his throat. His throat still burned.

The twins met eyes and nodded. Virgil was lifted off the ground, to his surprise. He was carried to the door of the Imagination. Maybe it was a good thing. He wasn’t sure if he was even able to walk at this point. He let his head rest on Roman’s chest. His eyes fluttered closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffs: gagging, talk of injury and healing. all the sides are here.

When Virgil woke up, he was surrounded. Janus was leaning against a wall, asleep but standing. Patton was in a chair not too far from Janus, also asleep. The twins were sleeping as well, but they sat in chairs right next to the bed Virgil was laying on, feet on each others’ chairs.

Virgil looked around for Logan, who came in, sipping a cup of tea.

“Virgil,” Logan said, setting the tea down. “You’re awake.”

Virgil nodded slowly.

“How do you feel?”

“I--” Virgil started, but he almost gagged at the dryness and soreness of his throat. He shook his head, rubbing his neck.

“Ah,” Logan said. “Yes, I figured talking might be difficult when you woke up. Roman told me that you had smoke in your throat and mouth. How did that happen?”

Both Virgil and Logan stared at each other before Logan remembered that Virgil, in fact, couldn’t talk.

“Right,” Logan said. “I’ll just…” He moved to wake one of the twins up, but was interrupted by a particularly loud snore from Roman, which actually woke Remus up. Remus noticed Virgil awake and kicked Roman to wake him.

Virgil felt his damaged heart skip a beat at the relief on the twins’ faces. Admittedly, it hurt a little bit, but that didn’t matter at the moment.

“You’re awake,” Roman said.

“And alive!” Remus put in helpfully.

“Indeed,” Logan said. He summoned a tongue depressor. “Virgil, would you mind?”

Virgil opened his mouth, but opening it too wide caused him to gag too, for the pressure it put on his throat. So he tried putting less pressure by not opening his mouth all the way while Logan checked his throat.

“Your throat is badly burned. I don’t think you’ll be able to talk for at least two weeks without hurting your throat,” Logan said. “Do you have another way of communicating?”

Virgil nodded.

“Good. Do you remember what happened to your throat?”

Virgil signed something, and Remus translated for him. “The Dragon Witch put fire down his throat,” Remus said.

“You guys know sign language?” Roman asked.

“All the Others do,” Remus replied simply.

“Virge, how did she get fire down your throat?” Roman asked.

Virgil signed something else, and Remus looked positively murderous.

“What?” Roman asked, concerned.

“She kissed him,” Remus said. “She kissed him to get his mouth open and blew fire in.”

“The Dragon Witch is actually part dragon?” Logan asked.

“Hence the name,” Roman said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I’m gonna kill her,” Remus mumbled.

“You already did,” Roman pointed out.

“And I have half a mind to recreate her to kill her again!” Remus said, his voice loud enough to wake Janus and Patton.

“Virgil!” Patton said. “You’re awake.” He moved to give the anxious Side a hug, but Roman and Remus prevented this when they noticed Virgil tense up. Patton quickly apologized.

“Virgil,” Janus said. “How are you feeling?”

 _Bad_ , Virgil signed.

Janus bit his lip.

“Speaking on how Virgil is, physically,” Logan put in.

“What’s up, doc?” Remus asked, materializing a carrot and taking a bite of it, before having it disappear.

Logan sighed at Remus’ comical display. “He’s able to be up and about, but he must be careful. His body needs time to heal. He’ll also need to go a few weeks without speaking in order for his throat to properly heal.”

Virgil just nodded, but he leaned back in the bed, tired already. He closed his eyes.

“Rest,” he heard someone say. “We’ll be here when you wake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's it! that's the end of this particular fic!  
> I'm going to write another fic for virgil recovering, because i didn't think it fit in this.  
> if you wanna read it when it comes out, subscribe to The Prince, the Duke, and their Knight series! (it'll come out when i figure out a title)
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


End file.
